e expect
an eclectic array of songs on each new Bobs CD, but the
latest·self-produced and -issued by the a cappella
quartet·is the most wide-ranging collection yet. Each
of the group·s past dozen discs features at least one
original song (and these are originals good enough to stand
alongside their covers of the tried-and-true), but this one
consists entirely of songs by others. And it culminates in
their outrageous version of Gershwin·s ·Rhapsody
in Blue.·

The current
lineup features a new tenor, if by ·tenor· you
mean ·singer who more than straddles the tenor range
and adds amazing vocal effects, percussive and otherwise,·
in the person of Dan ·Bob· Schumacher. And he
has added enough of a personalized stamp to one of the group·s
favorites·the Cream classic ·White Room··that
it·s rerecorded here, more than a decade after its
first Bobs waxing, with a new guitar solo voiced by Amy ·Bob·
Engelhardt that you·ll be hard pressed to tell from
the real thing.

Tom Petty,
They Might Be Giants, Louis Jordan, Lotte Lenya·what
a lineup of singers to salute! Yet here they are: Petty·s
·Freefallin·,· another Dan-and-Amy feature,
and ·Alabama Song,· from a Brecht-Weill musical
play (but also recorded by the Doors), showing Matthew ·Bob·
Stull at his most plaintive. And its sardonic humor effectively
contrasts with the rest of the playlist, which includes the
rousing ·Ain·t Nobody Here But Us Chickens,·
a bouncy R&B tune, and the just-plain-strange ·Dinner
Bell· from TMBG.

Once you
hear the robust, gravelly bass voice of Richard ·Bob·
Greene, one of the group·s founders, you count on his
occasional showpieces. On this disc it·s Eddie Davis·
·Teenage Brain Surgeon,· a song also covered
by Spike Jones but never more effective than here, in Greene·s
forbidding tones.

·Rhapsody
in Blue,· which burst on the scene in 1924 and shook
up the classical music world with its newest, baddest addition,
has resisted goofy arrangements (although Larry Adler did
wrest a harmonica version out of it). To lose the orchestra
would threaten to lose its essence, but the Bobs have reimagined
the textures and tone of the jazz-band-with-strings nature
of the beast and found a wealth of vocal and percussive effects
to enhance what amounts to their own (a cappella) orchestration.

Pianist
Bob Malone has formidable jazz chops, and he·s an engaging
singer- songwriter as well. In his role of soloist with the
instruments-free orchestra, he doesn·t always come
in with the classical precision we·re used to from
big-name soloists, but he does something better, taking jazzy
side trips from the score that work wonderfully in this context.

It·s
a 17-minute tour de force, trumping such classical-music invaders
as Tomita and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer·because it
takes the original to a new and interesting place, with Gershwin·s
energy and wit intact. Any fan of the human voice will enjoy
the unusual directions this disc takes.

·B.A.
Nilsson

Chris
Whitley & the Bastard Club

Reiter
In (Downtown)

Chris
Whitley·s brand of blues was not one of nostalgia,
but one that encompassed the sights and sounds of the modern
world·be it the Delta, the Lower East Side, or Dresden.
While his musical adventurism ensured that he·d be
a cult figure in his time, Whitley·s powerful final
album, Reiter In, shows that toward the end he was making
music that will only enhance his legacy as the years go by.

Whitley
and the seven-member Bastard Club recorded Reiter In over
four days in New York City in June 2005. On the disc, they
smoke through 11 covers and originals, mixing granite-veined
blues-rock with the cries of harmonicas and lap steels. The
music (recorded live to 2-inch analog tape in mostly first
takes) is consistently exciting, and the band succeed in making
a devil-music amalgam of Beefheart and Waits with Hendrix
and Page, unholy in the sense that it·s so damn seductive.
The Stooges· ·I Wanna Be Your Dog· smolders
with a dangerous cool, before Whitley steals ·Bring
It On Home· back from Led Zeppelin·s Brown Bomber,
and gifts it back to Willie Dixon. The instrumental ·Inn·
(where Whitley·s only audible words are ·And
when I left, you just watched me walk away·) is a haunting
duet between Sean Balin·s violin and Whitley·s
yearning slide guitar.

Reiter
is the German word for horseman, and the title track quotes
from an anonymous (and ominous) poem that says ·the
rider is the ghost that leads the body.· On another
track there is a quietly profound adage: ·All beauty
taken from you in this life remains forever.· On Reiter
In, Whitley haunts a place few others ever reach, the place
where myth comes alive and the blues run deep.